A self-described “visual activist,” South African artist Zanele Muholi, has dedicated her work and life to increasing the visibility of Black lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex people. Despite South Africa’s laws forbidding discrimination based on sexuality, violent crimes against gays and women have in- creased. Muholi’s self-proclaimed mission is ‘to re- write a black queer and trans visual history of South Africa for the world to know of our resistance and existence at the height of hate crimes in SA and beyond’.

Muholi has won numerous awards including the Ryerson Alumni Achievement Award, 2015 and the Fine Prize for an emerging artist at the 2013 Carnegie International. Her Faces and Phases series has been shown at Documenta 13, the South African Pavilion at the 55th Venice Biennale, the 29th São Paulo Biennale, among others. She was shortlisted for the 2015 Deutsche Börse Photography Prize for her publication Faces and Phases: 2006-14 (Steidl/The Walther Collection). Muholi is an Honorary Professor of the University of the Arts, Bremen.

Photos from last night’s talk by Shane Lavalette, an American photographer, the founding Publisher/Editor of Lavalette, and the Director of Light Work.

Muholi with Dumse waiting in anticipation for the audience to come to Watson Theater where the Artist talk was held

Lerato Dumse’s portraits (Left) 2015 taken during Light Work AIR and (Right) 2010 published in Faces and Phases (2006-2014) by Zanele Muholi